At our apartment in the South End in Boston (2023-2024), we had a nice backyard where me and my roommate would host a lot of parties. Some were more successful than others. In particular, one event (dubbed 727 for being on 7-27) was particularly unsuccessful. My good friend and DJ came to visit and we did a B2B backyard sesh. The music was amazing, vibes immaculate but we lacked the crowd. Looking back, our biggest mistakes were:

1. asking people to come at 2 PM on a weekend and saying party will go till 7 PM. There is a limit to expectations, as I have learned

2. not using Partiful or Luma (Apple Invites wasn't a thing back then) so we could never really remind people or confirm people. Plus, many flaked (~40%) or arrived very late (~70%)

3. not making the party interesting enough for 22-24 year olds - many flaked :(

4. not following rules 8 and 9 as mentioned here (whom to or not to invite given a group)

Some tips that worked for us in other parties:

1) Be very generous with drinks, make good ones and buy good beer/wine, avoid temptation to venmo request afterwards (please don't). atithi devo bhava

2) Have something to do. For us it was Dartmouth pong in our backyard lol

3) Have a good vibe

One major pro tip not mentioned: if inviting a girl you want to impress, learn to mix drinks and songs ;) A good shake goes a long way...

People send Venmo requests to people they invite to their own party?!